


until death takes them

by lev_aarons



Category: Alexander Trilogy - Mary Renault
Genre: Fluff, Frottage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 07:19:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17137439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lev_aarons/pseuds/lev_aarons
Summary: Hephaiston returns to Alexander from a trip to Greece. Alexander welcomes him.





	until death takes them

“I missed you,” Alexander says. 

They are in bed together, Hephaiston’s head resting in the crook of Alexander’s arm. When Hephaiston breathes, it shakes the hairs on Alexander’s chest. 

“Why did I let you go away?” Alexander says. 

“You needed a man you trusted,” Hephaiston says, “to arrange your reconciliation with Demosthenes. Someone who could speak for you, someone at whom Demosthenes would not take offense-- your beloved--”

“Hmph,” Alexander says. “Politics.” He runs a hand along Hephaiston’s side; Hephaiston arches into the touch like a cat. 

“Do you plan to run an empire,” Hephaiston asks, “without politics?”

“No,” Alexander says. He kisses the place where Hephaiston’s jawline meets his neck. “But I’m going to keep you.” Hephaiston begins to press kisses down Alexander’s chest, on his nipples, and across his stomach. “Side by side, shield by shield-- it’s not right for a friend to be so far away, Hephaiston-- ooh, that’s nice, keep doing that-- I don’t feel right without you-- mmmm--- from now on I’m keeping you in a position where you can stay near me.”

Hephaiston laughs, gently, against Alexander’s ribs. “That will do wonders for my military career.”

“You don’t need a career,” Alexander says, “you have me.” He twirls a lock of Hephaiston’s hair around his finger. “Every day I counted the days until you returned…”

Hephaiston snorts. “You did not.”

“I did,” Alexander says, all offended dignity.

Hephaiston kisses his temple, an apology. “So did I.”

Hephaiston is on top of Alexander now, Alexander’s legs spread and his hands running along Alexander’s back, and a silent shift occurs in the room. Hephaiston bends down and kisses Alexander’s lips.

Alexander kisses back with desperation, like a thirsty man given a taste of water. He does not lack his accustomed command, but it is subsumed under his hunger. Alexander’s lips are dry, but his tongue is wet as it searches Hephaiston’s mouth. Hephaiston makes a small moan, and Alexander pulls away. 

“I love you,” Alexander says, and kisses Hephaiston’s Adam’s apple. 

“I adore you,” Hephaiston says, and Alexander pulls him down and they are kissing again, lips and tongues and yearning, skin sliding against skin, Alexander touching him--

“This one is new,” Alexander comments as he comes to an unaccustomed scar. “Do I have to kill someone?”

“Fell off a horse,” Hephaiston says. 

Alexander purses his lips, as if he has half a mind to execute the groom, but Hephaiston kisses him again and he forgets this line of thought.

Alexander pulls away from the kiss and rests his hand against Hephaiston’s neck, his forehead against Hephaiston’s forehead, his nose against Hephaiston’s nose. “You are exquisite,” he says. 

“Mm,” Hephaiston says. 

“You are beauty itself.”

“I am no longer a boy,” Hephaiston says. 

“Beautiful,” Alexander insists, and entwines his fingers with Hephaiston’s fingers. They breathed together for a time, Alexander’s inhales becoming Hephaiston’s exhales, and he wonders if this was all Alexander wants tonight; but Alexander nudges apart Hephaiston’s legs with his knee and rests his thigh upon Hephaiston’s arousal. 

“I love you,” Alexander says. He kisses Hephaiston’s ear and breathes hot breath into it and Hephaiston shivers. “I want you, you’re beautiful.”

Alexander’s hands run along Hephaiston’s sides and across his shoulders and back and Hephaiston wonders at how Alexander is always in control, even when he is under Hephaiston, indeed even when Hephaiston is penetrating him. Alexander worms his way between Hephaiston’s legs, pushing his arousal up against Hephaiston’s with desperate need.

“I want you,” Alexander says, grinding up between Hephaiston’s legs, “you captivate me,” and he kisses the hollow in Hephaiston’s throat, “I love you and you are beautiful.”

Alexander has a way of making Hephaiston feel like a boy again, desperate and needy, hungry for Alexander’s body and for his approval, and Hephaiston returns Alexander’s grinding by moving his own hips, and is rewarded by a hiss. 

“Hephaiston,” Alexander says, the vowels long and drawn-out, and his voice breaks in the middle. “Hephaiston, I--”

Alexander moves, and Hephaiston is pinned to the bed, Alexander on top of him, his arousal bouncing preposterously between his legs. Alexander scoots down the bed and begins to nose at Hephaiston. He does not take it fully into his mouth, but he nuzzles and licks and kisses and nips and wraps his tongue around the head until Hephaiston is quite incoherent. 

Hephaiston exhales when Alexander sits up, a boyish grin on his face, and tries to ignore the pulsating need emanating from between his legs. “Did you learn that from your Persian boy?”

“Perhaps,” Alexander says. 

“It’s worth keeping him,” Hephaiston decides, and Alexander turns him to one side and presses himself between Hephaiston’s buttocks. Hephaiston wonders whether to ask Alexander to get the oil, is not averse to playing the boy tonight; but Alexander seems content to rub himself in long strokes against Hephaiston’s skin. 

Alexander reaches down to play idly with Hephaiston.

“You remember what Plato taught,” he says. 

Hephaiston gives a low noise, as if to ask who can remember Plato at a time like this. 

“About the androgynes,” Alexander says. “Once we were one, and we were too powerful, and the gods split us apart. And since then we have always been looking for our other half. And when we find them we want to have sex, because it is the closest in this world we can come to being one. But sex is always unsatisfying, because we can’t cross the boundaries of our skin, and at the end you always have to tear each other apart. We can never be one forever...”

“That wasn’t exactly what Plato taught,” Hephaiston says. “The dialogue--”

Alexander silences him with a kiss. “I want to be one with you, I want to merge, I want to be one being, I have found the other half of my soul, Hephaiston, and it’s you,” he says, punctuating each “I want” with a firm stroke of Hephaiston.

And Hephaiston finds himself on his back with Alexander over him, Alexander surrounding him, Alexander in his arms and on his lips and between his legs, everywhere he could look or hear or touch is Alexander, and for a little eternity they are one; then Hephaiston shakes apart, knowing it is safe, because he is floating in a sea of Alexander. 

“Don’t die,” Alexander says when Hephaiston has returned to himself.

“That’s morbid.”

“Don’t,” Alexander says, catching Hephaiston’s hand and pressing it to his lips. “I don’t know what I would do if I could never see you again.”

“Only the gods never die, Alexander,” Hephaiston says.

“They say I’m a god,” Alexander says, “in Egypt.”

“So you’ll outlive me.”

“I could make you a god.”

“I’d have to die first.” Hephaiston is languid, relaxed, boneless in the aftereffects of his arousal; the subject of his death seems very far away.

“I would die without you,” Alexander says, and when Hephaiston glances at his face it is grave. “I lived without you only because I knew you would return. I could not endure if I knew that you would never again be by my side.”

“Then we die at the same time,” Hephaiston says, carelessly. “A single arrow will pierce both our hearts, as Eros’s arrow did when first I saw you.”

“Promise?” Alexander asks. His hair, sticky with sweat, is spread over Hephaiston’s chest.

“I promise,” Hephaiston says, with the knowledge that Alexander loves him, and nothing bad will ever happen in the world.


End file.
